Most Americans believe climate change is real, but fewer see it as a threat

Four-in-ten Americans see global climate change as a major threat to the U.S., fewer than publics in other countries.

President Obama on Tuesday laid out his plan for combating climate change, including a series of executive actions he intends to take in order to get around likely congressional opposition. But while Obama might be able to side-step Congress, another challenge he faces is public opinion in the U.S.

While a survey in March found that 69% of Americans agree there is solid evidence the earth is warming, only 33% described it as a “very” serious problem, while another 32% said it was “somewhat serious.” Back in January, when Americans were asked about what should be a “top priority” for the president and Congress this year, dealing with global warming ranked last, with 28% holding that view.

Separately, a Pew Research survey of 39 nations conducted between March and May found that 40% of Americans say climate change as a major threat to the U.S., compared to a median of 54% in the global survey.

On specific issues, Obama said he would not approve building the controversial 1,700-mile Keystone Pipeline , connecting Canadian oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries if it was shown that doing so would significantly worsen climate change. The March survey found that 66% of Americans favored the building of the Keystone pipeline.

Obama also said he would have the Environmental Protection Agency draft new standards to reduce carbon emissions from new and existing power plants. Our survey conducted in February found 62% in favor of setting stricter emission limits on power plants, with Democrats strongly in favor and Republicans divided.

72 Comments

Global warming and environmental regulation and affirmative action and evolution and Mandela worship are all state religions whose gods are the gods my God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, commanded of us “Ye shall have no other gods before me”.

Which is maybe why Canada withdrew from and the US never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and why to this date in poll after poll, Americans of all stripes do NOT accept it is science, much less credible, much less religions, and only one third view it as a “threat”.

The main accomplishments of the gods of these religions, Phil Jones, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Nelson Mandela, is to be certified serial liars, and yet still get an absolute free pass by the mediots [media idiots].

Actually, it seems that it’s their ability to lie which the mediots, and many other idiots, love about them. Phil Jones’ reaction to being exposed as a serial liar is to act like a petulant child who had his comic books taken away.

It is scary that in a blog of the Pew research center the public writes in masse tons of absolute nonsense that not only would make any first year science undergrad blush and laugh hard and long, it makes one think that this country is really dumb and going happily into its own destruction. The 14 point percent difference between the US and all other countries regarding the threat of global warming speaks volumes of the enormous amounts of money the energy-related corporations in this country have spent in well-orchestrated campaigns against climate science and climate scientists. It is clear what the corporations are defending their profit margins, but to see the populace going against their own interests and defending the corporations is pathetic, absolutely absurd, and certainly more evidence that the free-market fundamentalists are winning this round in the US.
American exceptionalism is at work here…exceptionally stupid.

It is so funny to watch how liberals squeal, whenever a fact gets in the way of their agenda. Anything, that gets in their way, is tied to evil big business. Government jobs do not create income, only siphon it from the earners. Since they despise Capitalism, they need to ruin corporate America.
Here, in Columbus, OH, it was just reported that August, 2013 finished with an average temperature of 83.3*. The average recorded temperature for all Augusts since records have been recorded is 83.7* The recorded high temperature for Sept. 1st is 99*, set in 1954! I am pretty sure the folks were not screaming “global warming” 60 years ago when the temp hit 99.

“Here, in Columbus, OH…”
Don’t travel much, do you? It’s not called local warming for a reason.
The average global temp is rising, and 57% of U.S. adults now believe it’s due to human activity.gallup.com/poll/161645/americans…
Do your homework and decide for yourself.

and %40 of Americans believe in Bigfoot. What’s your point. People like you just don’t get the fact that it’s science and not a popluarity contest. No measurable warming in 15 years. Polar ice is thicher than ever and damn it there are plenty of effin polar bears.

Pat Murphy, you are right with your comments on global warming. I have no idea how anybody with half a brain could think this world could warm this earth. You people all learned in school the Earth is 75% water! If you, subtract most of Africa, Russia, China, South Pole, North Pole, Deserts, South America, Outback Australia most of the Mid West in America…you name it, all inhabitable land mass, and we’re down to maybe 3% of the world populating area mass.

Now a NFL football field is 59,520 square feet end zone to end zone 3% equal to (population of earth mass) the end zone is 1,7856 square feet. The square feet in an end zone are 1,920 square feet.

If global warming is true it would be equal to less than the end zone heating up the entire football field. Go Figure!!!!

Wow, what a bunch of cry babies! I remember thinking how ridiculous it was reading about the fact that people used to believe that the world was flat. Of course, back then we didn’t have educated scientists that simply report what they have found. Only a complete idiot, and that is most of the people commenting here, would believe climate deniers that are backed financially by the biggest polluters. I wonder what their motivation is, other then millions of dollars. Then we have the majority of scientists. Very few of them rich by any standard, simply concerned about the earth’s future. Then we have the morons commenting on this page. I read things like “I will never believe…”, “It’s Al Gore’s fault…”, and “The President is just trying to complete the destruction of the country with his environmental, communist, agenda…”. If this is the best you can do, and you really are serious about what you believe, maybe you had best shut up. On the other hand, with intelligence like this, perhaps it is best to let the planet turn into a desert and kill off our race. After that, the ozone will recover and maybe intelligent life will grow.

Scientists, till they were silenced, have already proven that global warming happened eons before & will happen again. This so called alarm is just another way to control the masses & profit the private sector, AKA Communism.

That is totally bunk. I bet the group interviewed was a small, focused, hand picked group. If that is the case you can in reality say that 40% believe in Global Warming – now changed to Climate Change (so that more people won’t laugh at the idea). It’s like the advertiseing company that is debunking the Iphone ads and saying people want them removed when in reality, the advertising company works to promote Samsung who is a major rival to Iphone. You really can’t believe such nonsense. If humans had the power to alter the earth’s atmosphere and climate why can’t natural catastrophes be avoided such as tornadoes, floods, earthquakes? Think about it and THINK FOR YOURSELF.

Global Warming is not real. The science is not good. The UN climate board said the Sun does not affect global warming, I mean come does it not get warmer during the day and colder at night. Yet they call it science. It is just a mechanism to control and tax people.

In the early 1990’s, we started receiving dire warnings of Global Warming. Interestingly enough, we also started becoming aware of the coming scourge of Africanized Honey Bees, and to this point I have attended exactly zero funerals of victims of that danger. We now have 2 decades of observable data to analyze since Al Gore and his accomplices sounded the alarm, that basically warned of all the areas of the world that would be under water by now, the huge areas of land that would no longer produce agriculture products, the Polar Ice Caps that would be gone …….. What we have learned so far: if you invested in some of the new Corporations popping up to combat the problem early, you could make a s–t load of money. If you were late to those companies, or stayed invested too long, you would loose your money, most going bankrupt.
The final diagnosis boils down to this: The Earth is in a period of Warming, except when it is in a period of Cooling. Hurricanes would be more numerous, except when they occur less often, and Tornado’s would be more numerous and more severe, except when the numbers were below the long term average, and about the same severity.
Science has become corrupted by Grant Money targeted to get a specific result. And last, and more important, Al Gore is the buffoon, screaming the sky if falling, the sky is falling, that many have known for decades.

The whole solar system is heating up, because the sun is going through a kind of ‘overdrive’ cycle. All the other planets are showing higher temperatures too. GW and the ensuing Carbon Tax t.h.e.y. are pushing for is just another scheme to transfer more wealth from the poor to the rich. HELLO!!! – Plants need CO2 to breath to create the O2 we needs to LIVE!

Since when does “most people believe” generate factual data. Global warming uses a very recent geologic time period. Reusing spoons that don’t require recycling certainly is better for the environment and saves on energy used to reconstruct recyclable materials. Media needs to back off jumping on the Gore bandwagon and assist in the search for truth. So far it seems to be a scientific fact that using natural gas produces less carbons in the atmosphere. Why, when fracturing shale rock to produce more natural gas, is the use of chemicals that pollute the earth not discontinued? The newest proven clean water technology usage for fracting is not required by all drillers. Is it possible those who talk green and especially our President has not heard of the “ozonix” process by Ecosphere Technology of Stuart, Florida? Is the media practice of publishing bias after bias after bias ever going to chase the facts that are available and get out a real story?

Most people believe.Have you seen the interviews of the average idiot on the streets of this nation.You are so right.This could hardly be construed as fact.Especially the idiots that voted for their beloved dictator.Total fraud.

Maybe God’s plan involves us either learning how to take of the planet or dying off to make way for someone who will. We do have free will, after all. What do you think would have happened if we had a nuclear war? It is not unbelievable that all humans would have died in the war or it’s aftermath. If we could destroy all life in an instant, what makes you think we couldn’t do it over centuries by destroying the ozone and slowly making the planet uninhabitable for humans?

“Most Americans believe climate change is real, but fewer see it as a threat” So a “belief” makes it true, despite the science that told us in the 60’s Global Freezing was occurring. Hang on to your wallets folks, Global Warming, with the disclosed conspiracy emails, is nothing more then a basis for Academia getting grants and Politicians going after your money. Now, when did Politicians really care about what most Americans Believe? I venture to say, most Americans believe in their faith, with the majority being some form or segment of Christianity. So we can conclude from their, Majority belief… Ah, common sense and problem solving, two items not being covered by either the Main Stream Media or our Public Education / Indoctrination System… Most Americans probably believed that the Gulf of Tonkin was real also… as a great man once said, you can fool most of the people most of the time, but you can not fool all the people all the time, that is why we have reeducation seminars, known as diversity and sensitivity training…

Liberals are dumber than I thought, they will believe anything Al Gore tells them. Poor old Obama doesn’t realize that the pipeline will help decrease global warming, he believes
the environmentalist, and since they give him so much money he could care less about the rest of the country. But most folks know Obama ain’t loaded with common sense, he wants
gas to go to 5 or 6 a gallon, and the Gov. to go broke, then he will feel he has done his part in destroying America.

I believe the ENTIRE global warming scam is fraudulent t the core – there is no truth in it
whatsoever. Factually, it is mathematically improbable for any of it to be true!

Americans who believe this nonsense are the same people who watch the Price is Right, buy scratch lottery tickets, think Oprah Winfrey is the smartest woman who ever lived, voted for the criminal who occupies the White House today…and want the federal government to feed them!

It is quite sad to see so many people following this man made global warming myth. I have yet to meet a liberal who can tell me how this once frozen planet with no life on it ever thawed out to once again support life after the dinosaurs. Add to this, the fact we all learned in middle school that the Earth is 75% water! So we have 25% land. Now, subtract most of Africa, Russia, China, South Pole, deserts, South America, Outback Australia…you name it, all inhabitable land mass, and we are down to maybe 10% of this planet being lived upon. Now, you want folks to believe that this small tail is wagging the dog?
The weak minded followers of Al Gore’s like need this charade to play…they have nothing else to do. Follow the money. They stand to make a lot if they sell their snake oil.

If it is true that the majority of Americans believe in global warming, I concur with them. As the earth gets closer to the sun it gets warmer; as the earth gets farther away from the sun it gets cooler; just as it has done BEFORE SUV’s. And how it will from now on. Man’s “contributing to global warming” (?) research Germany and the environment in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Nothing is new, it just repeats.

I don’t know who you talk to on a daily basis, but most people in my area don’t believe in Global warming, climate change or whatever its called now. The Earth has changed on its own for centuries, and if people actually, looked at data that has been kept by the scientists (proper ones any way). They would find that the Earth warms on its own with out the help of humans. By the way, the ancient peoples are the ones that started this should we resurrect them and condemn them to death for their crimes?

…Underfunded and struggling grassroots environmentalist groups are paying off 97% of the peer-reviewed, traditionally cautious, and evidence-based scientific community to risk their hard won careers by deceiving the public into believing the climate is being harmfully disrupted by our use of fossil fuels…

…or…

…Some of the most profitable corporations on the face of the earth and the history of humanity (fossil fuel companies) are pouring a deluge of cash into a massive public relations campaign – including the 3% of the scientific community they succeeded in buying – to convince the public that the massive combustion of fossil fuels and the resulting flood of prehistoric carbon into that thin layer of our modern atmosphere is actually not disrupting the natural climate…

…Take your choice.

We need government to fulfill its intended role as the arm of the whole People, for our protection and defense, and as the arm by which We the People get together and do things for each other and for our children that private interests cannot or will not do.

We also need government to get out of the way, in terms of its billions in expansive fossil entitlements and its continual defense and concealment of the externalization of fossil energy costs.

Ask yourself why our “public servants” are constantly and vociferously in the way of a level playing field. The overarching reason is that great mountain of fossil dollars and the threat of those dollars flowing instead to any potential political opponents (should their rhetorical grass seem oilier to oily donors).

All the elections in the nation last cycle cost something like $2 billion, and just ExxonMobil profited something like 40 times that number last year alone. If logic and sanity are going to have a chance in this game (the stakes of which could not be higher), we must stop the bribery.

Just as slavery was the old legal fiction that falsely claimed that a person is property,
“Corporate personhood” is the new legal fiction that falsely claims that property is a person. It’s the same lie, from the opposite direction.

Having failed to make slaves of us through outright ownership of persons in modern civilization, the moneyed elite now strategize to make their creations our masters – in the same paper creature of law, enjoying the special legal protections from liability and tax advantages that corporations now provide, and now further claiming – for that paper creature – all of our cherished human birthrights.

When people (and their corporate tools) try to argue in favor of this twisted form of “equality under the law” just keep in mind that corporations are taxed based only on their net domestic profit (that’s claimed revenue minus expenses), while we genuine flesh and blood people pay tax based on our gross revenue.

How’s that for having their cake and eating it too?

If money is Free Speech, then a few people and corporate objects of wealth will scream incessantly through bullhorns while the voice of the People is a smothered and gasping whisper.

At the beginning of the last century, the people of Italy and Germany didn’t have the advantage of knowing what their own history soon became, and those vital lessons that history can provide to our generation are increasingly obscured by the same kind of fiscal interests that wrestled against FDR when he charted a wiser path for America.

Benito Mussolini, a major proponent of fascism, defined it as follows, “Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”

The bottom line is: Do you believe in science, or not. If you believe in the 90% of environmental scientists who say man made global warming is here and progressing faster, you obviously believe in global warming based on facts.
If on the other hand, you listen to Rush Limbaugh on radio and watch Fox News on TV, you probably will believe that manmade global warming/climate change is a HOAX. Their agenda seems to be to protect Corporations from having to spend money making our air and atmosphere cleaner.

MANMADE global warming is a hoax….Global warming is not. You believe in science….so tell me how did man make the sun hotter…or Venus…or Jupiter…or Pluto. Human beings have such amazing abilities as to cause the entire solar system to heat up…right? Mr. “I believe in science”, maybe….just maybe, the one object that gives us life sustaining heat is going through a cycle,and is pumping out more heat than usual. Can you guess as to what that object is? I mentioned it earlier. It tends to do this from time to time. For clarification…Rush is a joke and all state run media… CNN, MSNBC….Faux news is very unfair and Bias. It seems your believable science was paid for by agenda driven politicians, regardless of what side of the fence your on…..just sayin

Scientists simply don’t know. We don’t have enough recorded time in the history of the world to know if this is a cycle or an event. But the liberal/socialist/communist politicians sure love to take advantage of the concern and blow it up into fear factor central.

Manmade Global Warming/Climate Change is a HOAX…..It is political. It has nothing to do with the climate or the weather…..Look up the “founding fathers” of the environmental movement back in 1970….It IS a leftist, political movement, comrades, and you’d better believe it…..science has nothing to do with it….period.

I would comment, but Steve Mizelle’s post below is more factual and eloquent than I could ever be. I will add; it’s about the money and the power. The government grants the money and retains the power (over us) by frightening everyone. The environ(mental)ists take the money and frightens us into thinking they need more money to study the situation so they can frighten us some more. Is it still “man made global warming?” Wasn’t it ever warm before man was made? Oops.

I remember as a child, Science said,” We are coming out of a miny Ice Age late 1960’s.” Well I wonder where did the miny ice age come from? With the Ice Cap receeding, it is exposing settlements of human existance underneath.. Gee What Caused GLOBLE WARMING back then. I know All the animal farts.. Over Half of AMERICA is on GOVERMENT HAND OUTS, and keep polling them. Remember what Hitler said, “The simple BELEIVE everything.” Even santa clause!!!!!

Global warming. Might or might not be real. The earth cycles between warming and cooling.
Glaciers are melting north of the equator, but ice is growing south of the equator. Probably due more with the earth’s angle to the sun. To think that man has more than even a small impact on global climate places a large self “agrandizement” on the issue. The sun has a far greater impact on our climate than all of man’s breathing, cars and coal fired plants. In fact Mt. St. Helens put more CO2 into the atmosphere than man has in the entire time man has been on the earth. Can man impact global warming. Maybe a small amount. Should we spend more to help. Yes. Is man the cause of global warming. No – get some common sense. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that we may, in fact, we may be in a period of global cooling.

I think you might need to fact check your Mt. St. Helen’s statement. I believe that the May 18, 1980 explosion at Mt. St. Helen’s was equivalent to 2.5 hours of human CO2 output (not more than all time as stated).

What is there to “believe” about the climate of Earth changing? Opponents like to point to problems at a handful of recording sites or individuals. However there are many hundreds and hundreds of sources of this type of data (thousands?)…are each of them “lying” about their results? (If you believe that, take another hit off that pipe and tell me all about how aliens are really in control of the White House….) So warming isn’t up for debate. What causes warming? CO2 in the atmosphere is a major cause. Based on the number of cars in the world (531+ million) and other large sources like coal plants, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that humans are responsible each year for emitting nearly 6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. 6 billion tons. Um, that’s a little bit. “Just” a million tons of CO2 sounds like a pretty large amount….now take that and release it into the atmosphere…6,000 times. The result is *by FAR* the fastest warm up in the history of the planet. The Ice Ages that everyone likes to talk about took THOUSANDS of years to start and then end. We’ve had more than that in less than 100 years. If someone is so dense to not understand such basic cause and effect, I really can’t take anything else they say seriously. Yeah….this huge and drastic change in the Earth’s temperature, one of the most extreme in the history of the planet, which coincides with human’s releasing a *&^% ton of Earth-warming substances into the air, is all one big coincidence. These are probably the folks who believe the planet is 6,000 years old, and that Jesus rode dinosaurs, so once again….hard to take them seriously. Is a carbon tax the answer? I doubt it. It only hurts US economically….the rest of the world won’t participate or will massively cheat the system for their own advantage. And coal is the future of energy in the U.S. So what’s the answer? I don’t know…but we need to figure one out. To dispute what’s so clearly happening to the planet right now is politically driven, not scientifically……

Notice how in the last line the switch from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change” and the majority believe in it. Of course the majority believe in climate change. Ice ages come and go, But Global Warming, BS, BS, BS……

Weather forecasts are reasonably good to about 2-3 days. Climate change predictions are just extrapolations of those very short term forecasts. I don’t take much stock in 10 day forecasts, much less 100 year forecasts.

Maybe the memo is wrong like all the research done so far. And don’t say we haven’t been lied to. Just a few years ago the British outpost in North Africa was caught not telling the truth about the average temperatures of the world. We have done so much so far to clean up the environment that we should be jumping for joy. Get China ,India ,Russia ,North Korea, and the rest of the World to do something. After all there is a natural cycle to all of this and your not going to stop it. Look at the % of people that elected Obama. Twice for God’s sake. And you think a higher % of people with bad information are right…..

“Climate change” is a misnomer for “climate cycles,” which is really the case. Truth be known, man’s impact on those cycles is minuscule, so all the “global warming” hype merely lines politicians’ (eg. Al Gore) pockets.

The group(s) most able to line the pockets of anyone would be industry, such as oil companies. Yet, they have not been successful in paying scientists enough to change the results of the large majority of responsible researchers. I know Ph.D’s. And you sir got your in the mail.

Get serious. By far, the outfit most able to line the pockets of their allies is the federal government. They take what they want from those who produce, and when that runs dry, they speed up the presses to print what they think they need. And the allies, to keep the flow coming, say whatever the regime deems necessary.

WTH does ‘median %’ mean in the title of that table? Median means half the data is below that value and half is above it. I think they mean to say just ‘%’. Did that come straight from Pew RC like that???

I think that each country was surveyed, and because all of the groups, except the US and Canada, are made up of multiple countries, then it IS a median %. Still pretty confusing though, and not a very accurate title. The more confusion they can lend to the cause, the easier it is to spread the lies.

I think you might be right with that explanation … and that is really a goofy way to show the data. If that’s right, then Pew is comparing inconsistent measures of the data. I guess, they could survey each U.S. state and then show the median percent from all the states, but why would you want to do that rather than just show the straight percent of the total data set?

Maybe all of this data reporting confusion is to distract people from the fact that even though this article appears under Pew Research Center Fact-Tank, it’s all about people’s beliefs on climate change and not actual facts.

this is a one sided conversation. You only publish what you want not what the people think. Be fair and balanced, not just one side thats why you get the false polling numbers.
LET THE PEOPLE SPEAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey all of you propeller head’s, the earth has been cooling for the past 100 years! I live in GA, we have NOT had temps over 95 all summer, it has been in the 60’s over night and cool enough to wear a sweat shirt in the morning this week. We also have had over 6 inches of rain this year. All lakes are full. NOAA has said this is the slowest start to hurricane season, no heat no hurricanes. Where is the global warming?????

Hey Bill, you do understand the earth has been COOLING for the past 100 years. The earth means THE WHOLE EARTH has been cooling, not warming. Gore is just as right as he was when he said he invented the internet. Keep following morons Bill.

We should do all we can to keep our air and water clean and healthy. But global warming is based on junk science. When the last Ice Age ended, that was global warming. But it wasn’t caused by human activity. The real, observable threat to the planet is desertification. Which is strongly influenced by human activity.

CO2 is the major contributor to global warming and humans are contributing a significant enough amount of the total that we could curb the path towards imminent warming if we so chose. Global warming will trigger the next ice age and when most of the arable land is covered in a glacier, seven billion people will kill each other over the last can of beans.
Yeah, I’d say it’s a threat.

The climate is always changing and it’s been that way since the beginning. Any idiot that thinks that man has anything to do with the climate isn’t using their grey matter between their ears for anything but a hat rack. No, climate change aka global warming is but another socialist concoction designed to control the masses, who are largely too uneducated or too preoccupied to notice.

Good old Ben Helvensteijn is worried about filling the world with “carbon” when the living world is bristling with carbon. We depend on carbon dioxide in order to sustain life and regardless of what the EPA says, it’s not a pollutant. From the hockey stick theory to the manipulation and falsification of data, there is not a shred of empirical evidence that man has anything to do with climate change. Take for instance, Ben’s fear of adding “carbon” to our atmosphere which he believes to be a greenhouse gas that’s going to raise world wide temperatures. If that’s true, then why hasn’t there been any warming of the atmosphere since 1998 despite billions of pounds of carbon being added to the atmosphere since that time? It’s because carbon makes up but a small fraction of the atmosphere and thus is incapable of preventing heat energy from escaping into space. Ben, water vapor is a more efficient greenhouse gas and you don’t see anyone trying to contain water do you?

No, this whole global warming/climate change is nothing but a bunch of hooey designed to force people to live the way the global warming proponents want them to live.

I’m with Glenn Beck and have thrown out my expensive compact florescence light bulbs…You know, the expensive ones that don’t last anywhere near as long as they advertize. Bring on the apocalypse and the last one off the planet, please turn out the light…LOL

most americans are aware that climate change is a natural occurance. our world has been doing it since its creation. and most of us are aware that it is but another way of forcing people to pay yet more taxes and more control over our lives.

patklker, haven’t you read that the last 20 years have been the warmest ever recorded, since the humans have started measuring the average global temperatures. This is not a natural occurance. Haven’t you noticed that our climate changing with the increasing weather related disasters? How can you or anyone else not take this serious and only worry about paying more taxes and more control. A typical thought of a Republican who only worries about the financial aspect where the affect of a global climate change is so much more. Whatever we can do change that should be and has to be priority #1.
How bad does it need to get before the majority of the US population thinks otherwise this should be a priority? The US should be worried more about the affects of global warming than Europe, since we are surounded by the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Europe is not dealing with nearly as many natural disasters as this is the case here in the US, except the low lying Netherlands.
So to all the doubters please start reading what happens if we reached the point of no return. That maybe and hopefully will change your mind & outlook.

Ignoring climate change is not that much unlike happily driving into a dense fog. Keeping the foot on the pedal wouldn’t be the most logical approach to merrily proceeding along the path, considering the path is no longer identifiable.

Why then is it when fog is so easily recognized as a hazard, it is so horribly hard for folks to go the next step to acknowledge that the job, of loading the world’s atmosphere with carbon that we have done as humanity, does indeed have consequences. We humans as a species put up this ‘fog’, it has been unquestionably measured, and its most likely consequence for all the properties it has, is that it will warm up this planet to an extent that many living organisms, including those that feed us, will not be able to handle too well (that and the resulting acidification of the oceans). Our crops grow because of a sustained presence of micro-organisms in the soil. What happens if they can’t stand the heat in the ‘kitchen’ besides the chemical and biological onslaught? What if all flora and fauna would have to migrate by hundreds of kilometers in order to stay in their familiar temperate zone? Would all those animals and plants be able to migrate as would be needed in spite of our already all too heavy stamp on land use around the globe?

Murphy’s Law has it that if there are ways for all that to end miserably, that such will be the way it will go. Mind you, ML has an excellent track record, on a par with the Law of gravity.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.